Introduction
Loss of biodiversity is one of the most severe global environmental challenges today (Ceballos et al ., 2015; 2017). The extinction of hundreds of species and populations every year, especially vertebrates, has been well studied (Ceballos et al ., 2017), and carnivores, which include species such as bears, wolves, and wild cats, are one of the most vulnerable groups (Vié et al ., 2009).
Jaguars (Panthera onca ) are the largest felid species in the Neotropics and their need for suitable habitat with abundant prey (Hunter, 2011) makes them vulnerable to the same type of human-generated threats faced by other emblematic carnivore species such as lions and tigers, namely, habitat loss and fragmentation, hunting, decrease in prey abundance, disease, and illegal trafficking (Ripple et al ., 2014; Loveridge et al ., 2016). About half of the 36 felid species are listed as threatened by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (Macdonald and Loveridge, 2010; Hunter, 2011; Durant et al ., 2017; Ghimirey and Acharya, 2017). Historical jaguar distribution range extended almost continuously from southern United States to central Argentina, and in Mexico its range currently extends along the coastal plain of the Sierra Madre Occidental and Oriental down to the Isthmus of Tehuantepec and into the Yucatán Peninsula (Ceballos, 2011).
Yucatán Peninsula supports largest jaguar population in Mexico and second in the Americas (Chávez, 2010; de la Torre et al ., 2017), it is part of the largest contiguous tropical forests in Mesoamerica which extends through Chiapas, Quintana Roo and Petén in northern Guatemala and Belize (Ceballos et al ., 2002; Briceño-Méndezet al ., 2017). A key component of the Mesoamerican Hotspot (Myerset al ., 2000).
An increasing number of animal movement studies, especially those involving predator-prey interactions, has highlighted the role of human activities in ecosystem endangerment (Chapman and Reyna-Hurtado, 2019). As opportunistic predators, jaguars hunt prey relative to its abundance (Rabinowitz and Nottingham, 1986; Aranda and Sanchez-Cordero, 1996; Garla, Setz and Gobbi, 2001), but other studies (Emmons 1987; Novack, 2003) have shown that forest jaguars exhibit species-specific prey selection. Predator-prey dynamics appear to be largely regulated by the hunting ability of the predator and avoidance strategies of the prey. While nocturnal predators like jaguars (Harmsen et al ., 2009) are usually less abundant than the species upon which they prey because of their position at the top of the trophic chain, temporal and spatial overlap among predator and prey may be as important as the relative abundance of prey in predicting encounter probabilities and defining opportunistic tendencies (Griffiths, 1975). Additionally, predators can maximize their hunting effort pay-off when prey are most vulnerable to attack (Fedriani et al ., 1999).
Assessments of predator and prey joint occupation (co-occurrence) and movements in a landscape could provide important insight into the predator-prey interactions and help explain if the spatial arrangement of a predator species and its potential prey is randomly determined or if it is driven by avoidance patterns of the prey species. In this study, we model the spatial distribution and movement of jaguars and five of their main prey species to estimate their co-occurrence in the study site.